


Secondhand

by willowoak_walker



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Different Geography, Gen, Misgendering, aro character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-19 16:09:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3616143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowoak_walker/pseuds/willowoak_walker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not what Gandalf wanted. It doesn't please the Sackville-Bagginses. It would have infuriated Thrain.<br/>It's just what you need.</p><p>STALLED. I have no idea where I was going with this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dís came to adulthood at 34, a little early. Frerin did so late, at 48. Thorin didn't. What use in that, when she'd been called Thrain's son and heir since she could walk? When she'd been twenty when Thror brought her up beside him at the negotiations table, “And my treasured grandson, Thorin, will remember this insult for years longer than the lives of humans,” over some imagined slight. When Thror had been telling her, “You will tell me when Thrain plots against me, my precious boy, and I will leave you King Under the Mountain,” for years before Dís became a woman.  


Perhaps, if her mother had lived, perhaps, if she had been a man – she might have arranged the ceremony and stepped into the eyes of her ancestors, adult and herself. But “daughter” was so nearly “jewel” that Thrain could as well be talking to the Arkenstone, “granddaughter” was one rune away from “mithril”, and they called her their treasure already.  


Thorin bound her breasts like a bearing man, braided her hair and beard to match her brother, and tried not to rub the places on her arms where the woman-bands should be. She ate and joked with the men, and beat the table for the bard-song. Thorin worked at the smithy until her arms were sore, fought on the practice field until she was anchored in her body with bruises, and tried not to look at the scissors Dís used to keep her beard in trim with hunger.  


Dís must have noticed. She asked Thorin to help her search through old designs for the woman-bands, and held them against Thorin's arms as often as her own. The sword she forged for Thorin would have been glorious enough had its hilt been ornamented with the dragons that were Erebor's symbol, and the gems and gold of manhood. But the hilt was a clever weave of intertwined snakes, incredibly beautiful and totally genderless. Thorin loved it.  


Thorin ran her fingers over the gilded wall of her chamber and stared blank-eyed into the fire. The children had been – hungry. In Erebor, the children had been hungry. And the food in the lower cafeteria had been reserved for the miners. The hungry miners, eating hurried meals of bread and stew, drinking water, leaving in exhausted slumps, their beadless braids silent.  


The gold under her fingers was warm, valuable, important, gold,

gold 

The wealth of the mountain, of the people, the value, the treasure, the look on her grandfather's face when  


Thorin tore her hand away and ran from the room. Down to the forge. She hunted, teary-eyed, through her tools, searching for one that would – there.  
The gold fell in shavings around her feet and the cool rough stone of the mountain appeared, inch by inch. She slept that night with gold-dust in her beard. The next time she and Dís went down the mountain, they took gifts.


	2. Chapter 2

“I would have thought,” Thorin said, head bent over the fiddly work of fixing a bracelet's clasp, “That they would have wanted daughters.” Dís hummed a moment, and looked up from her work to stare off into the distance.  
“I would have thought he would be glad to have a strong heir, too,” she murmured. The sounds of hammers and hot metal nearly drowned her out. “That putting all his wealth to use would please him.”   
Thorin's lips twisted with bitter memories of her grandfather's rages. “I thought,” she muttered, “that he'd value people more than gems.”  
“Thorin!” Dís said sharply, “Have a care!” Thorin bent her head over the table again, focusing on the work. Dís was right.   
The old broken wire finally popped free of the catch. Thorin huffed in pleasure and dumped it in the scrap-bucket. She measured out new wire from the spool, cut a good length, and set to slipping it in without letting it kink. She almost missed Dís' comment.  
“Men outnumber women three to one,” Dís said, softly. Musingly. As if the old fact meant something. Thorin grunted. “And Durin's line has long been slanted toward men.” She slid the knife she had been sharpening into its sheath with a decisive click. “And, after all, there is the stone to consider.”   
“Isn't there always?” Thorin muttered. The Arkenstone spoke to her in nightmares, sometimes. Less often since she'd stripped her room of gold.   
“He takes it much farther than any other man,” Dís said, as if in answer. “But then, it is no ordinary stone. Frérin seems fond enough of it. But then, we all knew he was a man.”  
“Oh!” Thorin said, and fell silent. She finished with the bracelet and put it in the 'ready' basket. “I've always rather liked working jewelry,” she said, “But -,” and shook her head.   
“But,” Dís agreed, setting the wetstone to a new-forged kitchen knife. “There's nothing quite like knowing you can destroy anyone who threatens your people. Thorin-che.” She twitched a braid away from Thorin's face, fond as a sister. Thorin smiled at her through the curtain of her hair, wry and thankful.   
“It is a good sword you made me,” she said. _Dís-che._ But that she couldn't say. Men didn't guard their siblings.   
They only treasured them.


End file.
